Articles Tagged As “Politics”:
2548.\\ Krauthammer: Closing the New Frontier
NASA is on the chopping block and the US is abdicating space. This is sad and depressing. Not to mention dangerous to our national security.
I happen to think that space travel should be driven by the private sector. But the market isn't there yet. It'll take a few more decades for private industry to get the right mix of cost, performance and safety. Until then the government is the only mechanism for incubating the needed industries and technologies and ongoing research.
And we're totally giving that up. Defeat and retreat. We're leaving control of space to China and Russia because we can't scrounge up $3B extra per year to fund the space program. How much are we spending on porkulus and porkulus II ? Oh that's right, trillions.
Nice work Mr. Obama. You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy.
TAGGED AS: China, Finance, Krauthammer, NASA, Obama, Politics, Porkulus, Space
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PERMANENT LINK2547.\\ I Don't Usually Post A Self-Fulfilling News Story, But...
I did so earlier today it seems. Apparently Berlin has refused, in no uncertain terms, to bail out the Hellenic Republic. That isn't good news for Greek national solvency, terrible news for the rest of the PIGS, and ultimately a complete embarrassment for the European common currency.
What it portends for what remains of Western Civilization is still in the future. The only question is how far in the future that definition can be pushed. My money is on a total meltdown before 2012.
2545.\\ The Case For Deficits and Against Spending
Just go read it. It makes sense.
Best bit:
"Unseen is how much higher our wages would be if our federal minders weren't spending over $3 trillion per year, and how very different and varied our collective employment outlook would be if our productive gains stayed in the private sector as opposed to the bloated government sector. It's said that government spending is compassionate, but what is compassionate about politicians spending money not their own?
If it's agreed that governments have no resources of their own, would readers prefer a balanced budget of $3 trillion plus, or a trillion-dollar deficit amid $1.5 trillion of spending? The answer here seems pretty simple. Since dollars are dollars, and investors don't seem concerned with the deficit, the most economically stimulative path would be to continue running deficits while greatly reducing the level of federal taxation and spending."
2544.\\ Coming to America: Crisis
Niall Ferguson's article in the Financial Times yesterday cuts to the core of the apparently insurmountable fiscal disaster we face. He repeats Larry Summers rhetorical question "How long can the world's biggest borrower remain the world's biggest power?"
I think it is absolutely fitting that the final implosion of Western Civilization is starting in the very birthplace of liberal democracy. Greece is doomed, that much seems increasingly clear. The dominoes will fall across the Club Med region. Berlin and Paris and London will attempt to right the ship, but it is a matter of rearranging positions in the lifeboat. The ship is lost. Europe has been on the slippery slope for years and is now in a headlong slide down the hill to ruin.
America seems next. Our collapse would make Greece's look like a minor nuisance. It seems pretty clear by now that the current one-term Administration is about as capable and up to the task of saving America as my 4 year old son. Unlike my son, however, Obama lacks modesty. He'll be the one at the helm loudly proclaiming how he, the second coming of Christ, did away with all the terrible things George Bush did as the bridge submerges and the stern rises out of the ocean. The reality is that while we might have been set on course to strike the iceberg by the previous Administration, the current one grabbed the wheel, locked in the course and put us a flank speed all the while loudly strutting and clucking about how great things will be because they took over the captain's chair.
It is, in short, a fast approaching disaster of epic proportions. Forget 1929, I'm talking 476 here. From this inflection point outward in the timeline, we will become a shell, a joke, America in name only. We'll be ruled by oligarchs and corporations and foreign governments, in short the barbarians. Oh future generations will still think of themselves as American, aping our ways and taking our titles, but they won't be any more American than the Ostrogoths were Roman.
Crisis, disaster, my friends, looming ahead. It may already be too late.
****UPDATE:
Von Mises agrees with me at least in part
****UPDATE 2:
And the BBC by way of Breitbart's Big Government
TAGGED AS: America, Debt, Deficit, Disaster, Finance, Financial Times, Niall Ferguson, Politics, Rome
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PERMANENT LINK2539.\\ The Debt Commission
I have some libertarian leanings. I'm not overly conservative when it comes to social matters. I'm not foaming at the mouth, ranting and raving from the lunatic fringe on the right.
More importantly, I hate taxes. I think progressive income taxes are unfair and unconstitutional. Payroll taxes are simply socialist wealth redistribution in disguise. The State confiscates my property routinely and gives it away to others and spends it on some pretty dubious things.
That being said, however, I am also cognizant of the yawning crisis in our nation's finances. That the public debt problem and ongoing budget deficit is the result of outrageous spending on a multitude of things of doubtful utility is reality. Congress seems to think it has no restraint on its power, regardless of who is running the place. Since the 1960s they have spent us into financial ruin. The root of the problem is runaway spending, without a doubt.
However, and I say this wearing my realist hat, there is a zero percent chance that my libertarian idealism in fiscal matters will ever manifest itself in legislation in the current climate. Congress won't ever repeal the income tax, won't eliminate the nanny state, won't abolish the IRS and won't institute a flat tax. Without cutting spending and without increasing revenue, the nation will be bankrupt within a decade. In fact, interest on the debt alone is currently north of 20% of Federal revenue and will be greater than all Federal revenue within a few years if the trend continues. That means if we cut spending to ZERO on everything...defense, government operations, entitlements...everything, then we'd still not have enough revenue to cover the interest on what we owe.
Tell me how that is sustainable. Clearly, it isn't.
So, given that fiscal irresponsibility on the part of politicians got us here, it seems to make sense that we need to invest some other body with powers to help resolve this issue. Yes I am aware that I just made the same case that was made in Rome when Caesar was vested with dictatorial powers. It is also the same case that Napoleon and Hitler made. I'm going to follow it up with another bit of rationale that has been repeatedly used in history to justify all manner of terrible things: desperate times call for desperate measures.
In our case, however, unlike the Roman Republic we still have strong checks and balances between our branches of government. It is extremely unlikely that sufficient power could be gathered into a single place to totally rend the Republic asunder and replace it with something undemocratic. Of course, I could be wrong.
But I have faith in the people of this country. To wit, over the past few months, faced with growing absolutism and rule by fiat in Washington, the people of varying party affiliation rose up and dealt the ruling party a series of electoral blows that ended its ability to ram through its agenda without popular support. Frankly if it came right down to it, and I've mentioned this before, there is always the likelihood of armed insurrection to prevent descent into dictatorship or corrupt plutocracy. I honestly believe that would happen. It happened before in this country and it could certainly happen again.
And so this morning the Senate will vote on whether to form an independent, bipartisan commission to tackle the fiscal crisis. This panel will be composed of various private sector luminaries and former politicians. It will study spending and income at the Federal level and recommend changes with the goal of setting the nation on sounder financial footing. The far left opposes this because they fear the panel will recommend cutting entitlements. The far right opposes this because they see it as a veiled attempt to raise taxes with the cover of bipartisan support. Frankly, both are probably right and to be honest both things have to happen. Taxes must go up and entitlements must be cut.
We cannot grow our way to fiscal solvency at this point. We're so deep in the shit that even 10% annual GDP growth wouldn't pull us out. Yes taxes should be low across the board in normal times. Yes lower taxes increase Federal revenue receipts in normal times. Yes in normal times a great nation such as ours must have safeguards to help those who for whatever reason cannot help themselves. Yes in normal times there is room for a fiscally strong Republic that has world class social programs for the poor and weak. However, these are not normal times. We cannot afford to act as if they are.
We will not get out of debt to our Chinese masters and we will not remain at the top of the global order if we do not address this problem now. It has been estimated that we have 10 years to get our act together before it is beyond all hope. We cannot simply cut taxes to the bone and grow our way out. Reagan did that but at the cost of adding trillions to the debt. Barry O has tried the Keynesian way of spending our way out and it hasn't worked but it has nearly doubled the debt. The reality is that our social programs must be drastically cut and our taxes must go dramatically up.
The first order of business is to cauterize the financial hemorrhaging by ensuring that more money is coming in than is going out. This means ending the bailouts, stopping new entitlement legislation (i.e. Obamacare), instituting an across the board spending freeze, and...get ready...bringing the legions home. Defense spending has to take a hit. Wind down Iraq and get our guys out of that graveyard of empires called Afghanistan. Turn it over to NATO or the reformed Taliban or whomever. I don't care. We can't afford it anymore. Yes it will expose us to risk. Yes it will haunt us in 20 years. All true. But right now we are facing the collapse of our entire Republic and frankly that is a bit more pressing.
Secondly, get the Debt Commission into action. They need to act quickly and get us a report pronto. They must recommend tax increases across the board and major cuts to entitlements. Then they have to follow up with sets of binding recommendations that have to be taken in a yes/no, up/down series of votes in the Congress. Nobody will be happy, but they have to be bold and do the right thing.
Third, a balanced budget Constitutional Amendment and a line-item veto Constitutional Amendment must be taken up with haste. We must enshrine fiscal discipline into the fabric of our system of government and our way of life. The Bill of Rights is meaningless if those natural rights cannot be guaranteed by a solvent, functional government.
I'm not an economist. I'm sure the geniuses like Bernanke and Krugman have all sorts of smoke and mirrors trickery that in theory would make the problem go away. I simply know that we are on an unsustainable path of insane spending and illogical, complex taxation that will ruin us.
Put that in your State of the Union and smoke it.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Conservative, Constitution, Debt, Deficit, Finance, Liberals, Libertarian, Politics, Spending, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2535.\\ All That Wind...
Report from Reuters suggesting that wind energy could generate up to 20 percent of electricity needed by the US East of the Mississippi. Course it wouldn't happen until 2024 and would require a hundred billion dollars.
I think they should work on capturing the wind emanating from Washington DC. Surely that is enough to power the entire eastern US in perpetuity and since we already pay for it, it should be free.
TAGGED AS: Green Energy, Politics, Reuters, Wind Power, Windbag
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PERMANENT LINK2532.\\ Senator Brown is on board
I love Peggy Noonan. Her writing is always enjoyable. Her piece today strikes the cautiously optimistic tone that resonates with me and with what I believe is an increasing portion of the population.
Best bit:
"Is it a backlash? It seems cooler than that, a considered and considerable rejection that appears to be signaling a conservative resurgence based on issues and policies, most obviously opposition to increased government spending, fear of higher taxes, and rejection of the idea that expansion of government can or will solve our economic challenges."
TAGGED AS: Democrats, GOP, Obama, Peggy Noonan, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2489.\\ Shatner Performs Poetic Reading of Levi's Tweets
I'm not sure if mocking Levi Johnston hurts him or helps him. I'm sure the verdict will come in after he poses for Playgirl.
In the meantime, enjoy my favorite actor as he uses a Shatnerian style to recite Levi's Tweets:
TAGGED AS: Politics, Sarah Palin, Shatner
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PERMANENT LINK2479.\\ I Don't Know Whether to Applaud Her or Not
Peggy Noonan is typically spot on with her analysis. And normally I cheer and applaud out loud when I read her material. She was one of the genius minds behind Reagan's optimistic message. Her latest column, however, is so pessimistic that I have a hard time believing she's right. Or rather, I suppose I don't want to believe that she is.
Is it possible that American decline could be the result of loss of faith in her institutions to such an extent that effective government becomes untenable? What happens then? Do we become a Confederation of States loosely aligned? Does politics become local again? Were the Athenians actually correct and Republics on a continental scale are impossible to sustain?
TAGGED AS: Democracy, Peggy Noonan, Pessimism, Politics, Republic
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PERMANENT LINK2462.\\ Glenn Beck Doesn't Need Defending
I like Glenn Beck a lot. I noticed him first last year when our government stole the next 50 years from us and our children by nationalizing the financial and auto industries and condemning America to decline.
Jonah Goldberg has a good article in today's USA Today that points out how popular he really is and why the right should adopt him and not push him away.
He can be a bit out there, to be honest. I don't agree with many of his arguments. But I like his style. I like his approach to discussing the issues of the day. Other programs take it at face value the a State should be in the business of wealth redistribution. He questions the very foundations of the modern American State and wonders aloud what the founders would think if they were alive today.
His detractors on the left, I just don't understand their hatred for him. He's bombastic, yes. But he isn't unlikable like Keith Olbermann. He isn't haughty and arrogant like Bill Maher. He isn't enamored with his own sense of humor like Jon Stewart. He's to the point, direct, and casual. I also find myself agreeing with him more often than just about any other politico.
TAGGED AS: America, Economy, Glenn Beck, Leftist, Media, Politics, USA Today
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PERMANENT LINK2458.\\ The Canadians Seem to Have Got It Right
Check out how awesome the Conservatives are doing in Canada. Under Stephen Harper's leadership, they are on the verge of a majority government. Stunning for a country normally labeled as hopelessly socialist. The reality of course is that they've been quietly leaning right over the past 5 years or so. At this point, it would not be a stretch to argue that Canada is a more conservative country than America. Imagine that. Canada to the RIGHT of America! Truly the apocalypse has arrived.
The GOP would be wise to watch and learn how to rule conservatively from the center and do it effectively.
TAGGED AS: Canada, Centrist, Conservatives, GOP, Politics, Stephen Harper
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PERMANENT LINK2449.\\ While America Burns to the Ground
I've agreed with Margaret Carlson before. And this time she has it exactly right. In an article for Bloomberg, she points out how frivolous Barry's jetsetting off to Denmark is while everything is burning to the ground here at home.
Most damning is her revelation that she agrees with Republican Senator Kit Bond. His main point is that while Obama doesn't have a spare minute to meet with his own Generals to work out the situation in Afghanistan, he has plenty of spare time to be on every tv program, do spots for George Lopez's new show, fly around the world apologizing for America existing and hob nobbing with the G20.
As Bond put it:
"it's baffling that the president has time to travel to Copenhagen, to be on 'Letterman' and every channel except the Food Network, and, yet, he doesn't have time to talk with and listen to his top general."
So here's to Margaret for putting journalistic integrity first and calling a spade a spade.
On another note, I don't give a damn if the Olympics never happen again and I care much less about whether or not Chicago gets the games. I DO care, however, if we are defeated in the middle east since that will have impact decades beyond the memory of any games anywhere.
TAGGED AS: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Margaret Carlson, Media, Olympics, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2445.\\ Is Ron Paul Insane?
Watch this. I happen to think he IS insane, but that doesn't negate the fact that he is totally correct on this topic.
As much as it pains me to say so, he is right, so is Rick Perry, so is the Tenth Amendment and so are the 7 States that have reaffirmed state sovereignty and so is Arizona which will soon vote to nullify Federal mandates such as nationalized healthcare.
And as much as it angers me and pains me to admit, there is an increasing likelihood that it will come to a breach in the not too distant future.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
TAGGED AS: 10th Amendment, Freedom, Government, Liberty, Politics, Revolution, Ron Paul
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PERMANENT LINK2444.\\ Depends on What Your Definition of 'We' Is
Thomas Friedman's latest column in the New York Times is bang on in one key area and it is a notion previously put to paper by Pat Buchanan on his blog. That notion is the dissolution of the nation. There is no 'we' anymore and with interest diverging so dramatically there is a real danger of the entire project coming apart.
I normally don't agree with Friedman's pontifications as they are routinely patronizing, naive, ultra elitist and smack of big brother. But in this opinion piece, he is absolutely right (for the wrong reasons). He believes that a result of all this ill will and rot at the center of American politics will be the assassination of Obama. Unfortunately he falls into the trap he himself is describing when he attributes all these problems to the right wing extremists who are out to hurt his President. The President and his party are as much to blame, if not more so, for the current state of politics as the opposition. Their left-wing policies are outside the mainstream of centrist America and that is causing an absolute fury that they cannot see or comprehend (Friedman himself is in this category. He cannot fathom that the rage in America might be justified and directed at radically left leaning policies of establishing a nanny state).
I personally agree with Gore Vidal in this stunning interview from the London Times; Obama is a danger to Republic. Whether that danger is more from Barry being inept and inexperienced and naive or from an electorate that is hugely ignorant yet massively influential via technology (blogging, twitter, netroots, et al). Either way, American politics have gone off the rail and the future of the Republic is at great risk. There is a real danger of this becoming yet another point in World history where the closet dictators among us may rise to seize the reigns. Vidal's point: it may require dictatorship to simply hold the thing together.
I don't want a President assassinated. No matter how awful he may be. No matter that he may be destroying the very nation he promised to defend. But there is something powerful in Jefferson's exhortation to take up arms against tyranny. Even more to the point, there is an absolute civic requirement to throw off the shackles of an imposed system. We are less free today than we were under King George III. If the Stamp Act required us to take up arms then what on Earth would our historical revolutionaries say about taxing people for drinking soda, forcibly vaccinating the population and forcing citizens to pay for health care or go to jail? What would any person who valued individual liberty, any patriot, say about faceless bureaucrats thousands of miles away deciding what your employer should pay you because it is in the "interest" of the "nation" to keep you below a certain income level?
I increasingly suspect that the entire thing is coming off its wheels. The ancient Maya may have had the end of the world pegged correctly.
TAGGED AS: Assassination, Barack Obama, Dictatorship, Gore Vidal, New York Times, Pat Buchanan, Politics, Revolution, Thomas Friedman, Times of London
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PERMANENT LINK2442.\\ Eisenfrau Merkel
The world has a new Iron Lady. I've always found it interesting how Europe, America and Canada seem to be politically out of step with each other since the 1980s. When we've got a center-right government they have center-left and vice versa.
The Canadians, British, Germans and French are all leaning away from their socialist parties. We just elected ours.
I wonder who's ahead of whom on the curve?
Best bit:
"If the trend continues, we may even get a pro-American president in Washington."
TAGGED AS: Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Germany, Politics, US
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PERMANENT LINK2401.\\
In a piece penned from Bizarro America, Thomas 'the world is flat' Friedman waxes poetic over the totalitarian state of China and wishes could please have some more wasteful spending in Congress if it means that we can finally impose all that is good and enlightened on the dumb rubes here in America.
Fuck freedom and liberty if it means the electorate (mob) can overrule those intellectuals who are fit to govern them. The unwashed masses shouldn't have a say in their own lives if it means that lifestyle conflicts with the philosophy of the ivory tower.
An American Liberal Democrat advocating totalitarian dictatorship of the enlightened elite. I never thought I'd ever live to see the day.
TAGGED AS: China, Dictatorship, Economy, Leninism, Politics, Thomas Friedman
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PERMANENT LINK2394.\\ Paul Krugman and the Advance of Madness
Yes it is old. But I didn't do any web surfing on Friday to spot it. So here it is.
In a quick blog post to (his blog? the NY Times Editorial Page? some random website he maintains? I can't figure it out), the Great American Poobah professes disbelief and surprise at the hate mail his political rants have generated.
On the one hand he calmly expresses a desire to not have people react so vehemently, so filled with blind rage, at writings that they may not have even read. And he cleverly weaves into this thread a charge that anyone who disagrees with Obama and the Liberal agenda in general must be retarded.
So we pair a legitimate observation on the temperature of the political discourse in this country with school yard insults from the 6th grade. Nice. Worthy of a Nobel laureate with his prominence.
I commented. But in case my comment is 'moderated' out of existence as routinely happens at the NYTimes.com website (regardless of how polite I am in disagreeing), I've asked some rhetorical questions (and statements) below that I'd love to ask Paul if I ever met him:
Dear Paul,
Why is it "bizarre" to think that the Obama administration is full of socialists, ideologues, angry leftists and others with a penchant for militant elitism? The news is replete with examples on a weekly, if not daily basis. Need I point them out to you?
Why does the intensity of the discourse strike you as amazing and "bizarre"? It is pretty clear that the nation has been divided for quite some time. Or did you think that when Obama was elected that everyone would see the light, swoon, smoke the bong and go into a haze of total agreement?
You were not "questioning Bush's bona fides" during the previous administration, Mr. Krugman. You have called him a liar, a war profiteer, an idiot, an elitist, an ideologue. a fundamentalist, denigrated his religious bent, suggested he inherited the White House and myriad other distateful things
Your articles on innocuous subjects like health care, economics and macro modeling provoke such 'incoherent rage' because they are political and you mean them to be political. And when you invoke your Nobel Prize to make points about politics you appear, and indeed are, elitist. And when those points are decidedly leftist in nature, paint everything on the right as a product of mental deficiency, and fawn over anything on the left, then you will provoke the kind of rage you see in your inbox. Seems pretty straight forward to me and I imagine in reality you truly understand it. Which leads me to my next point
Why are you so mock sincere with your statements? Feigning ignorance on subjects you should clearly have mastery over is the lowest form of intellectual discourse.
Need I point out that if Obama had come in proposing an agenda identical to the last administration, then you would not be supporting him and indeed be writing articles mocking his intelligence? It is totally irrelevant to point out something with is impossible. Why the false, straw man argument? It is beneath you.
Why do you invoke mental acuity to explain why the right doesn't see the absolute, perfect correctness beaming forth from the light of knowledge you've hoisted high?
In fact, involvement in politics is beneath you. Put your brain to work and solve our problems. Stay off the editorial and opinion pages where you simply diminish yourself, your ideas and liberalism in general.
Here's what my comment said:
"Why must there be something 'wrong' with people's mental faculties out there Paul? Is it possible, just possible, that the unwashed masses are right and you are wrong? Why this disdain for the mob when it rejects the light of liberal enlightenment you've bestowed on it?
You're a smart guy. Drop the emotion. Reassess. Quit calling people retarded because they think you're full of crap."
Lastly, does a minor blog post from a week ago warrant this rant? In and of itself, no. But I get pretty worked up at these elitists spewing about how dumb everyone else is and not getting challenged.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Elitist, Leftist, New York Times, Nonsense, Paul Krugman, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2388.\\ How Did Krugman Get It So Wrong?
In a must read article of the day, Paul Krugman, self-anointed Economic Grand Pubah of the Republic, exhaustively analyzes the current fiscal crisis and what happened at a macro level of economic theory and philosophy to get us here.
It is a great article that lays out the opposing camps of economic theorists and their general belief systems. He then proceeds to draw the total opposite conclusion from his data than I did. Now granted, I'm not a 2008 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science, but it seems to me that a simple return to pure Keynesian theory would simply lead us down the path of rehashing the past 60 years of US economic development. My argument is that the 21st Century is a different time and place with totally different challenges than the 20th Century. Keynesian economics failed during the latter half of the 20th, so why on Earth should it work at all in the 21st? It would make sense in a manufacturing economy based on exports with Unions and farmers and goods being exchanged. It seems hopelessly antiquated when dealing with a service based economy where knowledge is bought and sold.
But hey, what do I know. Read the article anyway, cause it is very very interesting.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Keynes, Paul Krugman, Politics, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2387.\\ Candidate in Chief
Excellent analysis. My favorite bit:
"President Obama seemingly has no clue about what he is doing, and, increasingly, it shows. What will happen when things start to go sour in Afghanistan? Our Commander-in-Chief simply will not be able to blame President Bush. After Obama has effectively destroyed the CIA, what will he do when terrorists strike? War is a nasty business in which lawyers should have little role. Has Obama noticed that Islamic terrorists are now threatening him? Does he understand that these vicious men are still threatening America?"
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, George Bush, Politics, US
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PERMANENT LINK2355.\\ Calling Leni Riefenstahl
Are you freaking kidding me? I feel like the lone Wiemar Democrat in January 1933 screaming "WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?!" Where is the media criticism? Where are the intellectuals on this blatant group-think mindlessness?
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Children, Communism, Creepy, Liberals, Politics, Self-Righteousness, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2353.\\ To My Congressman
Since your online comment submission application is generating error 500's and has an obvious database failure (perhaps it is full of angry comments?), I'm sending my comments to you via my blog.
Dear Mr. Inglis,
I am so enraged by your first vote on the bailout, Congressman, that you've managed to flip me from a supporter to someone who will actively speak out AGAINST you in the next election to prevent you from screwing me and my fellow constituents even further.
You've voted to destroy this country and every one of its founding principles. You've put your political self-interest ahead of the need of the people. You've managed to allow liberalism, dare I say socialism, to substitute its odious philosophy for market capitalism.
You should be ashamed.
You should be alarmed at the pork that this new bill is full of. You should be scrambling to prevent the outright embarrassment you will incur if you vote for this earmarked boondoggle that we cannot afford. It will saddle my children with debt to the Chinese for the rest of their lives and I won't ever let you or my fellow constituents forget it.
And tell the House to get new IT staff to fix that piece of shit website you have.
TAGGED AS: Bob Inglis, Congress, Economy, GOP, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2352.\\ Maxine Waters is a Liar
She's on America's Newsroom right this minute claiming that people were 'tricked' into signing mortgages. She's also asserting that nobody understands what is in a contract such as a mortgage and so you can't blame people for the housing crisis. Somehow it is because of deregulation, she claims, not Barney Frank and ACORN pushing subprime loans and encouraging people to put zero down that we've had a housing bubble. Deregulation caused a bubble? I think she means that manipulating the housing markets from a Congressional committee caused the bubble. The principle of the market has been working just fine for several hundred years, thank you very much.
She's a liar, a fraud and she has terrible hair. She clearly fits in with her district. But more importantly, this is just one more piece of evidence that she's off her rocker. See this gem from over the summer.
TAGGED AS: Capitalism, Congress, Economy, Liar, Liberals, Maxine Waters, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2351.\\ All in all you're just another brick in the wall
Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!
http://news.ionlinephilippines.com/2008/10/singing-obama-kids-video/
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Children, Communism, Creepy, Liberals, Politics, Self-Righteousness, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2350.\\ John McCain, Hypocrite
I'm seething with rage this morning. The guy I was hoping would come to town and throw out the spenders and ax the special interests has gone down without a fight, and he's not even in office yet!
How can a man spend his entire career fighting lobbyists, special interest groups and pork barrel spending and vote for this bailout bill? How can he rail against earmarks and express such passion about cutting wasteful spending only to go ahead and accept this Christmas tree festooned with waste, earmarks and special interest goodies to the tune of over a trillion dollars?
How can he accept this? How? I was thrilled last week when he suspended his campaign. I thought here is the man of action I'd like to see running the show. He flew to Washington and instead of standing up for what was right, he stood up and was counted for what was easiest. After he flew into town and got the read on the situation, he should have come out in front of the public and denounced this horrific attempt to manipulate the markets and extend bureaucratic control over capitalism as the pile of socialist shit it is. Furthermore, he should have said, there is nothing that could make me vote for this bill in its current form. No goodies, no trinkets, no added features, no extra earmarks, no nothing that would make me, John McCain, vote for something that is so at odds with my political philosophy, my record and my core beliefs.
What would Mr. Reagan think of you now John? You've become a big government stooge supporting a bill that gives away the future of my children and entrusts it to Chinese financiers and Islamic oil producers.
In the end, you've surrendered your principles when the time came to stand up for them. You've sold us down the river John. And what saddens me the most about it is that, while 73 of your colleagues (and it looks now like a majority of the House) also sold us down the river, you were the one guy that I thought could turn us around. So this black mark counts doubly, triply against you. You've ceded the moral high ground and condemned this country to 8 years of liberalism run amok. You've hastened the end of the American era by allowing the Democrats to ride their way to power in all branches of government. Their insidious policies will bring about the final death knell of this once great country.
This is on you, John. You and every other alleged fiscal conservative in the GOP. You and your buddy Lindsay have brought on catastrophe.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Conservative, Constitution, Economy, GOP, John McCain, Liberals, Lindsay Graham, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2349.\\ Karl Marx: 1, Adam Smith: 0
The Senate has passed Bailout v2.0 (aka Crap Sandwich 2.0) by a vote of 74 to 25.
Are there really only 25 market believers in the US Senate? God help us all if this is true. I'd almost rather believe that the 74 voted Yay in order to devour the billions worth of pork crapola that they've stuffed in this donkey.
I'm sorry to say that my own state apparently has only 1 Senator who places his faith in Adam Smith and not in the greedy, grubby, grabby hand of the United States Government. Well, you say, it must be Mr. McCain's good friend and fellow pork buster Lindsay Graham. Well, says I, you'd be dead wrong. Senator Graham has voted in favor of this steaming pile of shit. It was the junior Senator of the great State of South Carolina, Jim DeMint, who courageously stood up and threw down the bullshit card. I know Jim DeMint. I don't think the man voted against this because his office was inundated with outraged constituents. I honestly think he voted his principles. What a strange, absent concept in today's Congress!
So as this vote represents a victory for Marx, so too it reveals those in our nation's government who firmly believe in the foundational principles of this country as laid down by the founders and will stand up to prove it. Crises have a funny way of bringing forth those principled few and sending the unscrupulous masses scurrying for cover. It's like turning a light on in a grimy kitchen and watching the bugs run.
Weasled out. Beware, Mr. McCain
Stood up and was counted
Nod to Michele for the craptastic references.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, Economy, Jim DeMint, Lindsay Graham, Politics, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2348.\\ W.W.A.H.D. ?
The notion that bureaucrats should be involved in manipulating the free market is noxious. That being said, the prospect of economic panic, credit drying up, a domino effect of failing institutions and the rest of the world gloating at our problems compels me to support an effort to extend financial protection at taxpayer expense.
We've done this type of thing before, of course: the Savings & Loan collapse of the late 80s, the collapse of Chrysler in the late 70s, the Home Owner's Loan Corp of the 30s and 40s, the JP Morgan rescue of the 1907, the panics in the 1870s, 1841, 1819 and 1809. Of course, the granddaddy of all rescues was the original one in 1792 engineered by arguably my favorite founder, Mr. Hamilton. You can go read about it if you like.
But would Mr. Hamilton be happy by the current approach? Having studied the man in some detail, I suspect not. Hamilton supported public debt and strong central government in the furtherance of American economic power. He wanted to supplement and complement the principles of Adam Smith, not restrain them or legislate them. He would not have recognized the concept of restrained, third-way market capitalism that seems to be creeping around the globe.
The notion that the Federal government should be involved in the economy was a given to him, as it is to us today. But that involvement was not to function as an economic entity somehow superior to the invisible hand, regulating, restricting, governing it. The role of the Federal government, he would say, is to enable the American worker to start a business, sell his wares, sell his services, produce his product. To the extent that a bailout enables positive economic activities and doesn't restrict the economy through microscopic regulatory control, then it is a good thing. If the Fed presumes to know better how to govern the economy than Capitalism itself, then a bailout is a bad thing.
So where do we sit? To be honest, I don't know. Injecting liquidity into the system in order to prop up otherwise failing institutions seems to be a bad use of taxpayer money. It substitutes the judgment of bureaucrats and legislators (campaigning for re-election) for the judgment of the market. That should scare anyone who has ever seen government judgment in action (i.e. the DMV, FEMA, the IRS). Should we trust the people with a 10% approval rating to legislate a $14 trillion economy? I suspect not. Alexander Hamilton, I can assure you, would be aghast.
At the end of the day, what would Hamilton do? I believe he would look at companies that are failing because of the risk they incurred and suggest that they be allowed to fail and not nationalized or otherwise artificially propped up. He would view Government Sponsored Entities such as Fannie and Freddie with disdain and recoil at the notion that trillions of dollars worth of housing was being exposed to high risk because everyone was overconfident in the unlimited support and blank check guarantee from the Federal Government (aka the American Taxpayer). The government should not be loaning money to credit risks and acting as a mortgage lender and backer, he would say. The government should act as an enabler to allow people to own houses they can afford and not guarantee mortgages to those who cannot.
The very concept of risk-reward, the foundation of capitalism, is threatened with the bill currently being tossed about on Capitol Hill. Restricting market capitalism at this juncture would not be something Mr. Hamilton would favor. It didn't work in 1932 and it won't work now. The solution is to unleash the market forces, not further legislate them.
TAGGED AS: Alexander Hamilton, Capitalism, Congress, Economy, Politics, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2347.\\ Another Year, Another Kid, Another Anniversary
Yes, #3 is due in little over a month. Exciting to have another child; my first daughter. Born in the year of the first female Vice President? Who knows. What I do know is that I have the urge again to write on a regular basis. My children and the urge to write both seem to come at the same time of the year, the months around the 11th of September.
1777 wasn't a good year for America. Washington was in full-blown retreat, lurching his way across New Jersey and Pennsylvania desperately trying to find food for his army. Things were so bad that the soldiers, mostly naked (literally naked), were roasting their dead comrades' boots and eating the leather soles. Inflation at that time makes today's Zimbabwe look like a model of economic success. Yet the country pulled through. Things weren't terribly good, but perseverance and an indomitable spirit got those hardy people through some very dark times.
1861 was another year that wasn't great for America. My own state of South Carolina had rebelled, declared independence, bombarded Fort Sumter and the rest of the south followed it into war. Let me, for a moment, attest to the character of the southerners (of which I will likely never truly be a part). They are a tough bunch full of stubbornness, determination and grit. If anyone could defeat Lincoln's North, it was the people who gave birth to Lee, Bragg, Polk, Johnston, Hood, Beauregard and Forrest. But by cleaving a great people in two over an issue that should have (and could have) been resolved in 1783, the conflict that would ensue was an ordeal that America recovered from only after a century, appropriate legislation and anyone alive at the time had passed. It was the bravery and determination of people like Andrew Johnson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson that put to rest the schism and finally healed the nation.
1941 was a year that came to be infamous. It was not a good year for America. The Japanese had destroyed US Naval power in the Pacific and the British alone held the line against a terrible darkness. Western Civilization itself, and all of its 2500 year history, was at risk of slipping into a deep abyss. Let there be no mistake about how bleak things looked in 1941. There was a resignation in these States to Germany ruling Europe. There was a real, powerful (magnitudes more powerful than today) anti-war lobby that sought to keep America isolated and insulated from the world. The Japanese changed that on December 7th at 7:48 am. The result was a rallied America that had never been as unified and an awakened giant the likes of which the world had never before seen in the history of mankind. In a improbable turnabout, just 4 years later the United States was more engaged and involved in the world and more relatively powerful than any nation in history.
2001 was not a good year for America. Politics had torn the people asunder the previous year. Charges of a poisonous and ridiculous nature were hurled about between countrymen. There was nothing short of internal war. Had the politicians and ideologies been represented by individual States as they had been in the 19th Century, civil war might have resulted. The economy had had a bubble burst in the first months of 2000 and had yet to bottom out. Jobs were being lost left and right and GDP was threatening to enter negative territory for the first time in a generation. And yet things only got worse. In a short, brutish and nasty flash, an act of terrorism took more American lives in a single day than at any point in the nation's history save for the 1900 Galveston Hurricane and the Battle of Antietam. It was a stunning attack on the world's only indispensable nation, the only MegaPower, a nation that had never been attacked on its own soil in such a brutal and cowardly manner. Yet the nation and its people circled the wagons and pulled together. The people's leader, a man who came to power promising to keep America out of foreign adventures, summoned an improbable inner strength and vowed to focus on nothing but her defense. And to that end, he succeeded for the duration of his tenure.
I know I'll never forget that day. I doubt anyone alive in this country at that time will forget. It is etched in our collective memory in a way that few events are. It is a sad anniversary when it comes around. It reminds me of our mortality and the vulnerability of our people and our nation. I can only hope that my soon-to-be three children will never have to face a day like that. My oldest was 5 at the time and I doubt he recalls it. I envy him. If there was ever a harbinger of the new world order, it was al Qaeda. George Bush the Father spoke in 1991 of a new world order with a thousand points of light coming into being following the defeat of communism. It was not to be, sadly. The real indication that we lived in a new era was when cowards murdered 3000 Americans on a clear, crisp fall day in September 2001.
It makes me tear up to this very moment.
However, I have every faith in the spirit of my adopted country that we will pull through. And as we pull through, we bring with us the beacon of light that represents the sum history of the Greeks, Romans, Franks and Britons. If Western Civilization is doomed to fall prey to the darkness of radical ideologies (be it tyranny, racism, sexism, totalitarianism or religious extremism), it won't be on America's watch.
Tomorrow morning at 9am, I will board a plane with my eldest son and travel to New York. Ostensibly the trip is about experiencing Yankee Stadium before it is torn down. But it is also, and more importantly, about experiencing Ground Zero and the 9/11 Tributes at the Yankees game that I hope will leave an indelible mark on him. The greatest gift I feel I can give my children is knowledge and experience of the history I have witnessed.
And so I celebrate another year of writing and another child while I also remember the events of 7 years ago today.
Never Forget.
2345.\\ God Save the Republic
She makes me want to VOMIT with every fraudulent moment of her existence.
"Watch your future's end..."
TAGGED AS: Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Phony, Politics, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2344.\\ Stunned and Disgusted
It is a dark day for America. I'm not a liberal democrat by any definition. But I have to confess that I find Obama's candidacy exciting and different. I'm disgusted that the clinton machine has steamrolled him in New Hampshire. Everything about the clintons oozes phoniness and greasy self-absorbed self-righteousness. There is nothing at all about their character that balances the complete lack of moral guidance and complete lack of personal integrity. I find them to be the embodiment of everything that is wrong with American politics.
In stark contrast is Barack Obama. He is inspiring. He is someone I like watching. I don't agree with a thing he says, but I find him to be such a phenom and harbinger of difference that I cannot for the life of me understand why ANYONE would wish to travel back in time to 1992 and relive the depressing self-absorption and obsessive me-generation of the clintonian years.
The crying fit did it, I'm told. And yet no matter how many times I watch that performance, I can't figure out how any self-respecting American can observe clinton in all her fakeness complain that life for her is hard and actually believe she is genuine. Nothing about the clintons is genuine. Any of the advisers that have spoken candidly about the clintons note as a primary character trait their complete lack of honesty and that every single word and action is political in nature. Everything she does is engineered to play on emotion or place a doubt or raise a hope. She is the definition of fake. I hate her with such a passion that I would become a citizen and vote for Obama if I thought it would mean that no one named clinton would ever occupy the White House again.
Shock. Disgust.
How can machine politics so decisively overcome and defeat such a wave of hope and optimism? I don't think I'll ever understand people who support the clintons. People who think of the 1990s as the halcyon days. I just don't understand people who think of the clinton years with nostalgia. It doesn't make any sense at all to me.
They just won't go away.
I fear for the Republic when a hillary clinton can defeat a Barack Obama.
Now we have to suffer through her irrepressible 'comeback kid' nonsense where she talks about how she's a real person who has a heart and deeply wants to make a difference and how she has 35 years of experience and blah blah blah. God help us all.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, hillary, Obama, New Hampshire
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Clintonian, Democrats, Disgust, Hillary Clinton, Phony, Politics, Self-Righteousness
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PERMANENT LINK2340.\\ German Insight
West Wing: The Comeback of a War President - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News
Never thought about things quite like it is spelled out in this article. I mean, nothing in it is a surprise. But the analysis is something I haven't seen before. I have some quibbles, but overall I think he's got it right. It sorta seems obvious if you stand back and look at it. A generational war. Not a season of 24.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, politics, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Der Spiegel, George Bush, Politics, The Media, War on Terror
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PERMANENT LINK2339.\\ Um, Okay....
The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
So which is more lame; 1) the fact that they can't get a few drunk rednecks in Iowa to come out to celebrate Al Gore; 2) they can't get more than 15k signatures in California to get Gore on the ballot; 3) there is a FOLK SONG about Gore.
Hmm. All equally lame in my book.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, Al Gore, lame, Iowa, Politics
2338.\\ A Little Gem
I like this. Granted it sort of sounds like it was written by someone in high school, but hey. The sentiment is what I identified with:
Common Sense and Wonder: Bush Resignation Speech
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, economy, productivity, GDP, The+Media, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Economy, George Bush, Politics, The Media
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PERMANENT LINK2337.\\ Things Just Keep Getting Worse...
Why are there so few optimists in the world today? I think I'm one. Not a hopeless romantic optimist. But a positive-thinking realist. I guess I just don't go searching for negative news. As a result, I tend to think things in the world are better than does, say, the media.
Chronic Homelessness Down 12%
Productivity Surges by 4.9%
3Q GDP grows at 3.9%
You'll notice that good news about the US economy almost invariably avoids crediting the person who's been the chief executive of the Federal Government for the past 7 years. Not even a minuscule amount of attribution. Not one drop of imputation. Bad things in the world are naturally the result of something George Bush has done. Good things happen mysteriously and without causality.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, economy, productivity, GDP, The+Media, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Economy, George Bush, Optimism, Politics, The Media
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